ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

In what has, for no discernable reason, become a rush to publish biographies of Bell, this emerges as the least formal, most approachable of the pack. MacLeod (I Heard a Little Baa, 1998) takes the great inventor, familiarly dubbed “AGB,” from Edinburgh to Ontario, on to Boston, and finally to his estate in Nova Scotia, giving his public and private lives equal attention, capturing his vast range of interest from aeronautics to audiology, and bringing his familiar exploits to life. A stubby caricature of Bell guides readers through full but not overcrowded collages of family photos, manuscript pages, simple diagrams, period advertisements, and newspaper illustrations. This is just a glimpse of the man, of course, and those who want to take a longer look can start with either the web sites listed at the back, or move on to Tom L. Matthews’s Always Inventing (p. 69). (index) (Biography. 8-10)